


Trace

by RK_Anon (Rochelle_Templer)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, brief mentions of psychological trauma, brief mentions of violence, dream weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rochelle_Templer/pseuds/RK_Anon
Summary: Set after The Five Doctors. After fleeing the Death Zone and responsibilities on Gallifrey, the TARDIS crew are ready to relax and move onto their next adventure.However, the Doctor soon realizes that something left Rassilon's Tomb with him. Something that was eager to destroy.Something he might not be able to escape....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i was watching The Five Doctors again and when I wasn't noting how much Turlough clung to and fretted over Five, I got to thinking about how much Five actually went through during that story. 
> 
> Which got me thinking: what if he wasn't able to recover quite so easily from everything that had happened to him? And what if someone took advantage of that?
> 
> Thus, this fic came to me....

It started in the place where things often did: in the land of dreams.

After fleeing the Death Zone and Chancellor Flavia’s insistence that he become Lord President at last, the Doctor had felt exhausted. Not so much physically as mentally and emotionally. Having his psyche carved away bit by bit and then haphazardly reassembled had been more taxing than he had expected.

That’s all it was. Of course that’s all it was.

That’s what the Doctor kept telling himself anyway.

Tegan had settled into the library to read while Turlough had gone off somewhere on his own. Probably to spend some more time drawing. He had seemed eager to focus on his art for a while which was something the Doctor always tried to encourage. The Doctor decided he wouldn’t bother either of them for a while.

With the TARDIS drifting through the Vortex, it was the perfect time for him to get some sleep. He went to his bedroom and took of his jacket, sweater and shoes, barely giving himself time to slip his braces down before collapsing into bed. He fell asleep almost immediately.

It was after he fell asleep that the problems began.

His dreams had started off harmless enough, a simple wandering along the tendrils of time and his own memories. Reliving some of his favorite moments and people during his travels. Soon, however, it became something more. Something chaotic.

He heard voices.

For a moment, the Doctor couldn’t make out who the voices belonged to or what they were saying. However, it wasn’t long before he was able to pluck out stray phrases from the clamor.

_‘My dear fellow….’  ‘When I say run….’  ‘I think not, Brigadier….’ ‘Oh no my dear boy….’  ‘…a doctor….’  ‘…my giddy….’ ‘…jelly baby….’_

_“This…this is…they are…me….”_

The Doctor grimaced, but did not wake up. It wasn’t unusual for him to contact one of his other selves while he was sleeping. But not like this. Not all of them at once. Besides that, they weren’t even talking to him. They were talking over him. Over his own dreams, his own thoughts.

And they were getting louder.

_“No…stop it…please…you must stop…I can’t….”_

But the chorus of voices only grew louder, chattering away as if they were not aware of each other or the Doctor he was now. Soon, memories from those lives rose up through the noise: images of what had happened throughout time fell into his consciousness in a jumbled mess of time lines that zig-zagged and criss-crossed over each other.

The Doctor’s head throbbed as he tried to sort through it. It was like a ball of yarn had unraveled into tangled clumps which were smothering him. He thrashed about in bed, his breaths ragged gasps. Sweat glistened on his forehead; hands clenching, bunching the sheets into tight fists.

_‘It will not stop, Doctor. Only I can make it stop.’_

Still lost in his dreams, the Doctor tried pushing his way through the tumult. Someone had just spoken to him. Someone who was not one of his other selves. An intruder. An invader.

_“Who are you? What are you doing here?”_

There was no response. Only a sudden chill breaking though the noise and confusion which affected him and only him. The Doctor frantically searched through the corridors of his mind, but his progress was slowed by the chaos surrounding him.

_‘Only I can make it stop. You will submit to me, Doctor.’_

Then he saw it. It was in the darkest corners of his mind, but he had still managed to spot it. There was a shadow, a black shape that appeared humanoid. No, a Time Lord. Somehow, the Doctor knew it was another Time Lord. He could sense it in the way its presence resonated in his mind.

But this wasn’t the normal communication that happened between Time Lords in their hive-mind community. This was far more sinister than that. It wasn’t even communication.

It was domination. Of him. Of his present self.

_‘You will submit to me, Doctor. You have no choice.’_

_“No…it’s…it’s….”_

_“…Borusa?”_

_“No, get out of my head. I…I….”_

The voices suddenly grew louder and the images of his memories blended into a smear of dingy color. It shattered his thoughts, frying his nerves down to raw pain. The Doctor was drowning, being pulled down into a quagmire of disjointed past lives. His current self dissolving into nothing.

_“No…no….”_

“No!”

The Doctor bolted upright in bed, coughing and gasping for breath as he did so. His hearts raced to the point of aching. He could barely see, his eyes still dilated with horror.

Suddenly, a soft voice spoke to him, causing him to flinch.

“Doctor? Are you all right?”

The Doctor’s eyes darted toward the doorway of his room. His vision was blurred, but he could make out a figure sliding into his room and shutting the door behind them. His hearts shuddered as his mind raced to identify whoever was approaching him.

_“Thin…black suit…red hair….”_

_“Turlough….”_

The Doctor let out a shaky breath and smiled. “Quite all right, Turlough. Just a…minor sleep disturbance. I’ll be fine in a moment.”

He had tried to sound calm, but it had been impossible to stop his voice from sounding so jittery. Turlough would not be fooled by his assertions that he was fine.

To his relief, however, Turlough said nothing to challenge him on it. Instead, he silently walked over to the bed and sat down. He watched the Doctor with those penetrating, sky-blue eyes for a moment before leaning in and planting a light kiss on the corner of the Doctor’s lips.

“Would you like me to stay with you?” he murmured.

The Doctor wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close. He buried his face into Turlough's neck while Turlough returned the embrace. Turlough was always so good about respecting boundaries. About not pressing him to talk about things he didn’t want to. It was one of many, many reasons why he was a precious gift the Doctor treasured after doing without this sort of intimacy for so long.

Thus, he didn’t want to respond to Turlough’s understanding with a lie.

“Please,” the Doctor replied, moving his face to kiss along Turlough’s jaw line. He didn’t really want this to go anywhere, and thankfully, Turlough seemed to sense that with the affectionate, but chaste way he kissed the Doctor’s cheek in return.

Then Turlough extracted himself from the Doctor’s arms and stood up. He removed his jacket and tie and kicked off his shoes before returning to the bed and lying on his back. The Doctor crawled over to him and laid down mostly on top of him. He kissed Turlough on the lips once more before scooting down so he could rest his head on the center of Turlough’s chest.

Here, he could listen to Turlough’s heartbeat: strong, steady, always a slightly different rhythm than a human’s. The Doctor could feel his breaths and take in his scent all of which was familiar and comforting. Here, there was no noise, no chaos. He could simply focus on Turlough. On being with Turlough.

Eventually, the Doctor felt a hand lightly stroking his back, causing him to smile and tighten his hold on Turlough while he closed his eyes.

The Doctor knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not really. But at least with Turlough here, he could rest.

That would have to be enough for now.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few days, Turlough began to notice a change in the Doctor.

* * *

 

After spending a few hours together in his bedroom, the Doctor got up and began to work. He worked on major projects like the directional software and repairing the dematerialization circuits which hadn’t quite recovered after Turlough’s sabotage had made them land on Terminus.

He was also obsessed with much smaller projects like the hiccup in the main doors that happened once in a while or a fault that made the lights flicker in one of the side corridors in the interior of the TARDIS. Things that he normally brushed off as unimportant became the focus of hours of tinkering.

Soon, the work became continuous and consumed the Doctor’s full attention. Even when the TARDIS landed on a planet, he often elected to stay onboard rather than explore. Although he still encouraged his companions to go if they wished. Not that they did most of the time.

After four days of this, Tegan pulled Turlough aside.

“Cripes, Turlough, I’ve never known the Doctor to be a homebody,” she told him. “What’s with this obsession with working on the TARDIS all of the sudden?”

Turlough frowned. “Don’t ask me. I’ve tried offering my assistance several times, but he just tells me that it’s all ‘tedious repairs’ that I wouldn’t be interested in.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Tegan frowned. “He’s never turned you down before. I thought he was glad to have someone around who could help him work on this rackety old time machine.”

Turlough shrugged, but didn’t reply. He’d been annoyed by the refusals, but had tried to not let it show too much. Perhaps the Doctor just needed some time to himself to get over…whatever it was that had disturbed him a few nights ago. More than once, Turlough had wanted to ask him about it, but distant way the Doctor was acting lately put him off to it.

“It’s not just that though,” Tegan continued. “You saw the way he snapped just because the tea wasn’t hot enough for him when I brought him some from the kitchen. I’ve seen him get upset before, but not over something like that.”

“He reacted a similar way when I mentioned that he had incorrectly rewired one of the circuit boards for the TARDIS’ lighting,” Turlough said, his hands fidgeting. “He apologized right afterwards, but….”

“But you and I know that he usually doesn’t act that way,” Tegan finished for him. “He’s never been this short-tempered. Something’s wrong, Turlough.”

Turlough agreed with her, but wasn’t sure if he should mention what had happened that night when he walked in the Doctor having a nightmare. At least, that’s what Turlough thought it was at the time.

Could it have been something more?

“Maybe we should just give him some space for now,” Turlough said. “That whole thing that happened in the Death Zone and with Borusa and the Time Lords…maybe it bothered him more than he wanted us to realize.”

“Well if that’s the case, isn’t leaving him alone the last thing we should be doing?” Tegan said. “You remember how he needed us so he wouldn’t fall apart while Borusa was kidnapping his other selves. He needed us then. He probably needs us now.”

“We can’t force him to open up and spend time with us if he doesn’t want to do it,” Turlough snapped. He took a short breath and tried to regain his detached façade. “When he needed us then, he didn’t push us away, remember? He asked us to stay with him. And if he really needs us…I’m sure he’ll ask again.”

Tegan eyed him with obvious doubt in her eyes, but eventually threw up her hands, signaling her concession to his argument.

“All right, but we should keep an eye on him anyway. I still say there’s something wrong and he needs our help.”

Turlough waited until she walked away to clench his hands and scowl. The truth was, he felt the same as Tegan, but he didn’t want to go into why.

What he hadn’t mentioned to her was that, ever since that night in the Doctor’s bedroom, his attempts to be physically affectionate with the Doctor were rebuffed. Embraces were not returned and kisses seemed to go unnoticed. When Turlough was more direct about wanting to spend time with him, the Doctor would either give him an impassive stare or some excuse about not being able to leave the console room unattended.

Turlough’s blinked hard, trying to stop the watery burning in his eyes. The rejections had hurt. Hurt enough to reignite many of the insecurities Turlough had had at the beginning of their relationship: that the Doctor would tire of him, that the Doctor would eventually realize that he wasn’t enough.

That he wasn’t worthy of being loved.

Turlough swallowed hard and took several deep breaths. The only thing that stopped him from acting on his hurt and his fears was his belief that the Doctor wasn’t acting like his usual self. That perhaps this was just a passing issue which would resolve itself soon and that things would be the way they were at the end of it.

It wasn’t much, but it was something he could cling to for now.

* * *

 

Two days later, nothing had improved. In fact, it had gotten worse.

The three of them were in the console room again, preparing to land the TARDIS. The Doctor had selected a space station that gave visitors a chance to learn about many of the  oddities native to the section of space it was positioned in: larger than normal dwarf stars, black holes that did not have a gravitational pull and perhaps one of the few stable wormholes in this part of the universe.

Once again, the Doctor had encouraged Tegan and Turlough to go out and explore while he stayed onboard to do some more work on the TARDIS. This time though, Tegan was not satisfied with that suggestion.

“All right, Doctor, what’s going on?” she demanded. “It isn’t like you to stay on board and not be curious about any of the places where we land. What aren’t you telling us?”

The Doctor looked up from the screen he was staring at and gave her a baleful look. Tegan, however, did not back down. Instead she moved closer and put a hand on the Doctor’s arm.

“We’re not trying to tell you what to do. You know that,” she said, her tone kind in spite of the look he had given her. “We’re just worried about you is all. Both of us are.”

As Tegan spoke, the change in the Doctor’s demeanor was dramatic. He immediately went from cold and impassive to apologetic and regretful.

“I’m sorry Tegan,” he said softly. “I….”

Suddenly the Doctor stopped, his gaze become unfocused and distant, as if he was looking through Tegan rather than at her. An instrument he was holding fell from fingers that had become limp.

“Doctor?” Tegan asked, giving the Doctor’s arm a slight shake. She looked over at Turlough with confusion in her eyes.

Turlough frowned and walked over to take hold of the Doctor’s other arm. He tried shaking the Doctor as well, but it had no effect. Concern quickly shifted to fear.

“Doctor?” he said, a hint of pleading he couldn’t stop in his voice. “Doctor!”

Turlough gave him another hard shake, and the Doctor’s lips began to move.

“Must find…you…no not…will…there is…submit…they…they…must…”

Turlough and Tegan gaped at the Doctor who continued to babble on that way for another minute. None of his words seemed connected to each other and they were said with an increasingly labored voice.

Turlough felt a chill spread throughout his body. Whatever this was, it was affecting the Doctor’s mind in more ways than one, and right now, it was as if the Doctor was completely lost to them.

The Doctor’s legs wobbled, his posture sagging. Turlough slung an arm around his waist and shook him again.

“Doctor! What’s wrong? Answer me…please….”

The plaintive tone in Turlough’s voice caused Tegan to raise an eyebrow. More importantly, it seemed to reach the Doctor who suddenly stopped his droning and blinked several times as he steadied himself.

“Turlough?” he said, staring into Turlough’s eyes. Turlough let out a sigh of relief.

“Doctor, what happened?” he asked. “What did you….?”

Before Turlough could ask him anything else, the Doctor abruptly shook off his companions’ hold on him and stood up straight. He ran a hand down his face and gave them both a weak smile.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just a bit giddy. I have been spending a lot of time on these repairs after all. Maybe a little too much time. Nothing to worry about though. I, I think I’ll just lie down for a while.”

The Doctor backed out of the console room and headed toward his bedroom before either of them could say anything else. Eventually, Tegan walked over to Turlough, shaking her head.

“He probably could use some sleep,” she said. “But I don’t think for one minute that a nap is going to take care of this, do you?”

Turlough shook his head. His anxiety over what he had just seen had not abated one bit.

Nor could he stop feeling frustrated over how he continued to be pushed away.

* * *

 

Several hours later, Turlough stopped by the console room and discovered that the Doctor still had not returned. By now, Tegan had gone to bed, and he had prepared to do the same before deciding that he wanted to check up on the Doctor.

Figuring that he was probably still in his room, Turlough went down the corridor to find him. He opened the door to the Doctor’s bedroom to find him sprawled out on his bed. The Doctor had changed into his ridiculous whit pajamas with the red question marks and was staring at the ceiling, his eyes wide open.

At first, Turlough wasn’t sure if the Doctor had noticed him. He was about to speak when a long sigh from the bed stopped him.

“Turlough, haven’t you learned to knock?” the Doctor said, his voice weary.

Turlough crossed his arms over his chest. “Would you have answered if I had?”

A frown appeared on the Doctor’s face, and Turlough braced himself for yet another rejection. However, the Doctor surprised him by sitting up and staring at him, his eyes warm and imploring. Beckoning.

Turlough hesitated, but swiftly realized he needed no other persuasion. He went over to the bed and climbed in, sliding under the sheets. He scooted over to the Doctor who reached over to cup his cheek gingerly, gazing into his eyes.

“Turlough, I…I’m sorry,” he said softly his tone contrite. “I know I’ve been very difficult to live with of late.”

Turlough felt his anger and irritation soften as he tried smirking at him which soon led to a chuckle.

“No more than I’ve been in the past, I’m sure,” he replied. “Still, petulant and absentminded don’t suit you, Doctor.”

“Not the way impudence seems to suit you.”

“Are you asking me to change my ways?”

The Doctor gave him a wide grin, his eyes lit up with affection. “Never.”

Turlough laughed as the Doctor drew him in for a kiss. Turlough closed his eyes and ran his fingers through the Doctor’s hair while the Doctor ran his hands all over Turlough’s back.

Soon, things became much more heated as the Doctor fumbled to remove Turlough’s tee shirt and lounge pants with Turlough helping him along. He could already tell that this round of lovemaking would have far less finesse than usual, but he didn’t care. He was certain that both of them were starved for this kind of attention and that they could use some comfort.

Turlough gave the Doctor one more kiss before pulling back so he could focus on unbuttoning the Doctor’s pajama top. The languid, but adoring look in the Doctor’s eyes erased all the fears he had had about the Doctor’s feelings for him which only added to Turlough’s passion.

He loved the Doctor and now that he was certain again that his love was reciprocated, he was eager to demonstrate how deep his feelings ran.

As soon as he got the buttons opened, Turlough started a trail of kisses down the Doctor’s chest. He reached down to touch him in more intimate places and the Doctor let out a soft moan. Turlough smiled, pleased that he still had the ability to turn him on so quickly.

Turlough had just started to reach for the Doctor’s pajama pants when a sharp cry from the Doctor stopped him. His body went rigid, his eyes rolling back. Turlough’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Doctor? What’s wrong?” He sat up and put his hands onto the Doctor’s shoulders. “Are you all right?”

The Doctor’s breaths became quick and desperate, as if he had to fight for each one. All Turlough could see were the whites of his eyes while the eyelids twitched. Violent shudders wracked the Doctor’s body.

“Doctor!” he nearly shouted at him. Turlough looked around the room, terrified. He thought about calling for Tegan, but wasn’t sure what she could do. Or what anyone could do for that matter.

Suddenly, the Doctor stopped moving and became completely limp in Turlough’s grasp. His head lolled to the side, his eyes rolling back to the blue although they remained vacant and unseeing.

“Doctor?” Turlough said quietly, placing a hand on the Doctor’s cheek. “Can you hear me?”

“Turlough?” a tiny voice answered him. The Doctor slowly turned his face toward him. “Is that you?”

Turlough swallowed hard. “Yes,” he choked out. He gently ran his fingers through the Doctor’s hair. “Are you all right?”

“Turlough…where am I?” the Doctor asked in the same excessively docile voice. “Do…do you know who I am?”

Turlough felt his insides turn cold, twisting into a knot of dread. “You’re the Doctor,” he said, struggling to sound reassuring. “You’re in your bedroom on the TARDIS. Remember?”

“Remember?” the Doctor parroted. “Oh…must…remember….”

The Doctor’s hands reached up blindly, searching. Once they touched Turlough’s head, they pressed up against the sides of his face, the Doctor’s index fingers pointing into his temples.

“Turlough, please…must…remember….”

It only took seconds for Turlough to understand. “You want to see into my mind? To help you remember?”

“Please….” the Doctor croaked.

Turlough shivered. After his ordeal with the Black Guardian and the forced invasions into his psyche he had had to endure, he was reluctant to allow anyone to enter into his thoughts.

However, the lost, timid look on the Doctor’s face was inspiration enough to push past this hesitation.

“All right,” he sighed. He placed his hands over the Doctor’s and closed his eyes. “You’re the Doctor. Can you see it now?”

Turlough fell silent, concentrating on the Doctor and on his memories and feelings about him. It wasn’t long before he felt another presence in his thoughts, something warm and vaguely familiar.

It wasn’t long though before this comfortable feeling was replaced by a throbbing pain. He gasped as a flood of images and sounds rushed into his brain. Knowledge and perceptions that were alien and beyond his understanding overwhelmed him.

Turlough’s mouth fell open to let out whine of pain. It was too much to handle at once. He started to squirm away when darkness began to blot out the images that had swamped him.

_‘What…what is this?’ ‘This darkness, it’s…it’s….’_

_‘It’s not the Doctor….’_

Turlough whimpered, tears threatening his eyes. Suddenly, everything blurred and the pain immediately stopped. He blinked several times while his vision cleared. Once he could see again, he was greeted with the sight of the Doctor watching him, his eyes clear and full of concern.

“Turlough, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Are you all right?”

Turlough nodded and reached up to massage his forehead. He took a deep breath and scrubbed his eyes before turning his attention back to the Doctor.

“I’ll be all right,” he insisted. “But what about you? What happened to you just now? And don’t you dare say it was another sleep disturbance. Not with what we were just doing. Unless you want to sleep alone for a month.”

The Doctor’s mouth twisted into a smirk with Turlough letting out a nervous chuckle back at him. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Turlough still found solace in the closeness he felt between them right now.

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but halted at the sound of high heels clicking rapidly in the corridor. Tegan.

Turlough and the Doctor looked at each other for less than a second before both of them hastily grabbed their clothes and started yanking them back on. Turlough had just barely finished when Tegan flung the door open.

“What is going on?” she demanded. “I heard shouting and….” She took one look at the Doctor’s pale, drawn face and shifted her focus onto Turlough, her eyes becoming hard and accusatory. “What did you do to him?”

“Me?” Turlough said, his voice briefly going up a pitch. “I wasn’t hurting him, if that’s what you think.”

“Tegan, Turlough is telling the truth,” the Doctor assured her. “On the contrary, he was just providing me with some invaluable assistance.”

“’Invaluable assistance’,” Tegan repeated. “Is that what you’re calling it?”

It wasn’t difficult to discern the subtext behind her question which caused Turlough’s jaw to drop and the Doctor’s face to turn red.

“Tegan, I can assure you that Turlough and I….”

“Oh come off it, Doctor,” Tegan interrupted. “As if I didn’t know what the two of you were up to after I went to bed.”

The Doctor blushed even more while Turlough ground his jaw, his hackles rising.

“What of it?” he spat. “It’s none of your business if we decide to….”

“Hold on, Turlough,” Tegan said, raising a hand at him. “Look, I know that you and the Doctor.... I mean, if this is how it is for the two of you, I don’t care. I’m not judging you for it. I just didn’t realize you were the Doctor’s type is all.”

“I don’t know if I really have a _type_ , Tegan,” the Doctor babbled. “Once in a while, it just seems to….”

“Please spare me the details,” Tegan said. “If being with him makes you happy, that’s all that matters to me.” She glared at Turlough one more time. “As long as he’s not hurting you, that is.”

Turlough glowered at her while the Doctor put his arm around Turlough’s waist and drew him close. Turlough felt some of his irritation fade and responded by looping an arm loosely around the Doctor’s stomach.

“I can assure you, he’s not,” the Doctor said. “Far from it, actually.”

Tegan nodded, an apology in her eyes which Turlough acknowledged with a nod of his own.

“All right, Doctor, but what’s happened to you?” she continued. “You look like you’ve been through hell.”

“Tegan, it’s not….” The Doctor sighed, hanging his head. “No…no, I’m afraid this is more serious than I had anticipated. I thought I could take care of this problem myself, but I’m not sure if I can anymore.”

“But what is it, Doctor?” Turlough asked, draping his other arm around him. The Doctor looked over at Turlough with eyes full of exhaustion, anxiety and sadness.

“I believe Borusa is trying to take over my mind.”


	3. Chapter 3

Several minutes later, the three of them were sitting in the TARDIS’ library. The Doctor and Turlough had gotten dressed into their usual outfits while Tegan made some tea.  Currently, Tegan was curled up on an overstuffed armchair with a cup while the Doctor and Turlough sat together on a couch across from her.

Turlough sipped at his tea and noted how the Doctor kept his fingers wrapped around his cup without actually drinking from it.

“But I thought you said that Borusa was dead,” Tegan said. “Back in the Death Zone. You said that Rassilon turned him into a statue or something.”

“Not really a statue, Tegan,” the Doctor replied. “It was more of a dimensional trap. One where he would be frozen for all time and from which he could never escape.” He leaned forward. “You see, Rassilon did keep his promise. Borusa will live forever. And that was the price Rassilon demanded for immortality.”

“And you think that Borusa found a way to escape?” Turlough asked, sitting his cup down. “And that he found a way to send some kind of psychic attack?”

“No, no he couldn’t have sent anything from where Rassilon is holding him,” the Doctor said. “But in this case, he didn’t need to. He’d already set up a link in my mind. I just didn’t realize it. I, I didn’t know that the Coronet of Rassilon held that much power.”

“The Coronet of Rassilon?” Tegan repeated. “You mean like a crown?”

“Yes, exactly, but this was no ordinary crown. It can be used to bend the will of others to the wearer’s will. Even Time Lords. He used it on me before I returned with him to the Death Zone. It was….” The Doctor shuddered. “…quite effective, I seem to recall.”

The shudder did not go unnoticed by Turlough. He remembered what it was like when the Black Guardian used to push his own malevolent thoughts into his brain as a way to make him more pliable. During those times, Turlough was helpless within his own body and could only listen as his mouth repeated the vile things the Black Guardian forced him to say.

Thoughts of something like that happening to the Doctor felt like shards of ice in Turlough’s heart. He put his hand onto the Doctor’s knee, closing his pale fingers around it. The Doctor glanced at him, gratitude flickering in his eyes.

“So that’s why you looked so out of it when you got to the tower,” Tegan continued. “But, I don’t understand…you were able to break free of Borusa’s control. You must have. And yet you’re saying that he could still control you now?”

“I was able to break free because my other selves were there too,” the Doctor replied. “The combined power of our brainwaves was enough to wrest control away from him. However, while he had control of my mind, Borusa must have established a remote link so that he could direct my actions. And that link must still be there. Still accessible to Borusa even in his current state.”

“But what can he make you do?” Turlough asked. “Even if he could control you, there’s nothing you can do to free him, is there?”

The Doctor slowly sat his cup down, his gaze fixed on the floor. “No. But he wouldn’t need me to. You see, he’s not just trying to control my mind and body. He’s also attempting to destroy the stability between myself and my past incarnations.”

“Your past…, but they…they’re gone, aren’t they?” Tegan said.

“Not at all,” the Doctor said, raising his head. “They all still exist.” He tapped his forehead. “They’re in here. That is how I am able to communicate with them both telepathically and whenever our time lines happen to cross. They are all still a part of me.”

“I see,” Turlough nodded. “That’s why you were so affected when Borusa kidnapped them and took them to the Death Zone.”

The Doctor beamed at him. “Exactly. It was as if Borusa had taken my limbs or parts of my brain. Eventually, the strain of separation would have killed me.”

“Is that what Borusa is trying to do again?” Tegan asked. “Disconnect you from…the rest of you.”

The Doctor nodded. “Even now, I can sense the discord in my mind. He’s taken advantage of the recent splintering of my psyche to create a riff between me and them.”

“You mean the other you…the other Doctors…they’re going through this too?” Tegan said.

“I don’t believe so, no. They might be experiencing some…stray cosmic angst. But because their time lines precede mine, they won’t be directly affected. No…it’s this…this current regeneration…that Borusa is after.”

The Doctor shivered again and collapsed back against the couch. Turlough moved his hand to cover one of his, but the Doctor didn’t seem to notice.

“If he manages to completely sever my link with my previous selves, he’ll be free to inhabit my body and mind without any further resistance,” the Doctor continued. “I, I believe he was testing his ability to control my automatic and motor functions tonight.”

Turlough swallowed hard. That explained what happened while they were in bed together. Borusa had waited for a moment when the Doctor wasn’t so vigilant over his own mind and took advantage of it. It sickened him to think that that something as intimate and loving as what they were doing was used that way.

“Then we’ve got to do something,” Tegan insisted. “If he’s that far along with this, then there’s no telling how much time we’ve got left.”

“But what can we do?” Turlough responded.

“Could we go back to the Death Zone?” Tegan offered. “Let Rassilon know what’s going on and about how Borusa is trying to weasel out of his punishment? I’m sure he’d want to do something about that.”

Turlough snorted. “Somehow, I doubt that he’s someone who can be reasoned with.”

“I’m afraid Turlough is right,” the Doctor sighed. “If I were to go to Rassilon, it’s likely that I’d be forced to share immortality with him just so Rassilon wouldn’t feel cheated of his quarry.”

“Then what can we do?” Tegan said.

The Doctor lowered his head. As he did, Turlough could see a sadness in his eyes that made him uneasy.

“There is one way,” the Doctor said quietly. “I could force myself to regenerate.”

“You mean…kill yourself?” Tegan gasped. “Doctor….”

“It wouldn’t be like that, Tegan,” the Doctor said in the same melancholic tone. “You know that from experience. If I regenerate, I might be able to purge the link Borusa has established in my mind. Although…it might be…difficult.”

“What do you mean?” Turlough demanded, his suspicion growing.

“The link is firmly established in my subconscious,” the Doctor continued. “This incarnation’s subconscious. Therefore, the only way for this to succeed would be to permanently sever myself from my other selves.”

The Doctor raised his head, his eyes distant. “I must…be erased. From my past and my future.”

“No!”

The Doctor and Tegan started at the angry, demanding tone Turlough had spoken in.

“Turlough….” Tegan started, but the Doctor cut her off.

“Turlough, try to understand.” He laced his fingers with Turlough’s. “If Borusa gains control over this incarnation, it would be a disaster. The High Council has tried more than once to have me installed as Lord President of Gallifrey. Borusa could use that to his advantage and then the power of the Time Lords would be available to him for whatever mad scheme he could conceive next. And this time, I don’t think he would limit himself to controlling Gallifrey. Rassilon’s punishment has driven him madder.”

“And your solution is to delete your own existence?” Turlough snapped, incredulous. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that this could be exactly what he wanted in the first place? To get revenge? Or maybe to make sure that you can’t interfere with the next plot to take over Gallifrey?”

The Doctor picked up Turlough’s hand and stroked it gingerly. “I will still be here. It will just be another incarnation of me.”

“But it won’t be _you_ ,” Turlough insisted. Turlough felt his throat tightening and his chest seemed to be caving in on itself, but he persisted.

“You said that you were going to erase this version of yourself from the rest of you. If you do that what will you lose? Your memories? Your experiences? The things you’ve learned?”

Turlough reached over and grabbed at the Doctor’s wrists with his other hand. He could never say it, but further down inside him, there was another far more selfish reason for his fear.

_‘If he erases this self…what will happen to us? Will he remember me? Like me? Will he still…want me the way he does now? Or will I just become another passenger to him?’_

Turlough’s stomach lurched. Even if they could save the rest of the Doctor’s incarnations, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he would still lose the Doctor, his Doctor, the man who loved him and saved him and had reawakened his heart and soul.

“When we were at the Eye of Orion, you said that a man is the sum of his memories and that this was even truer for a Time Lord,” Turlough added. “Do you really think that you can just toss one of your incarnations aside and not have it affect you? You…you wouldn’t be whole.”

“He’s right,” Tegan chimed in. “We saw what happened to you in the Death Zone. Even if this worked, whoever you became next, he would have problems from the start.”

“There has to be another way,” Turlough insisted.

The Doctor looked back down at the floor, his brows knit in concentration. He stayed that way for several minutes until, suddenly, his features went slack and that faraway look they had seen before returned to his eyes.

“Doctor?” Tegan said, leaning forward. She grabbed his arm. “Doctor?”

“Doctor?” Turlough echoed. The Doctor’s hand had become limp in his. Soon, panic bubbled up inside him.

_‘It’s happening again. Borusa is trying to take over.’_

_‘No! He can’t. We have to do something.’_

_‘I have to do something….’_


	4. Chapter 4

For a moment, Turlough continued to watch helplessly, desperate to do something, but lost as to what he could do.

Then, acting on a flash of inspiration, Turlough picked up the Doctor’s hands and pressed them onto the sides of his head, making sure that the Doctor’s index fingers were jammed against his temples. Then he leaned in and pushed their foreheads together, closing his eyes. Concentrating.

_‘Doctor! Doctor, I’m here….’_

He wasn’t sure if the Doctor still had enough presence of mind to reach him telepathically, but Turlough continued to focus on him nevertheless.

It wasn’t long before there was an ache building up from the back of Turlough’s head which soon swept over his entire brain. He gritted his teeth and struggled to push aside the pain so he could continue to concentrate.

_‘Doctor…Doctor…please…..’_

_“….Turlough?”_

There was another spike of pain, and it was over. Turlough opened his eyes and pulled back to see the Doctor blinking rapidly and panting.

“Turlough?” Tegan said. “Are you all right? What just happened?”

Then it was Turlough’s turn to blink in surprise. At some point, Tegan had gotten off the chair and was now kneeling on the floor next to him, her hand on his arm.

“I’m fine,” Turlough said although he could hear the strain in his own voice. He looked over at the Doctor again and was relieved to see that the Doctor was quickly regaining his composure.

Tegan shifted her attention to the Doctor as well, touching his forearm. “Doctor?”

“I…there may be another way,” he said slowly. “Turlough’s just given me the idea. I might be able to sever the link in my mind with some assistance.”

“What kind of assistance?” Tegan asked. The Doctor looked over at her.

“One of you would have to link up with my mind,” he said. “Of course, neither of you are natural telepaths, but the TARDIS has equipment that will enable me to guide you into a stable connection with my mind.”

“But what will that do?” Tegan asked. 

“Borusa is relying on the chaos he’s creating in my mind to prevent me from pinpointing my own natural mental defenses against him,” the Doctor explained. “But with one of you there, I might be able to focus enough to sort through the jumble and concentrate on him.”

“All right,” Tegan said, standing up and smoothing down her skirt. “Let’s go.”

The Doctor blinked hard as if what he had just said finally sunk in. “No. No, I can’t ask you to do that. Because you are not natural telepaths, the link could be very dangerous to either of you. There could be mental and physical side effects. And while Borusa might not be able to harm you directly, he could manipulate your minds in such a way that any damage he caused would be just as real as anything that could happen in the physical world.”

“Sounds about as risky as any other day traveling in the TARDIS,” Tegan nodded sagely. “Look, Doctor, we’re not going to let you kill yourself and this looks like the only other way.”

“Tegan,” the Doctor said, his tone despondent. “I can’t be sure of my ability to look after you while our minds are linked. If Borusa continues to gain control….”

“If, if, if…we don’t know for sure, Doctor,” Tegan said. She gave him a quiet smile. “’If’ might be a powerful word, but we can’t let it control us. We need to do this and you know I’m right.”

The Doctor bowed his head. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Tegan insisted. “You’ve stuck out your neck for us plenty of times. It’s the least we can do. So…which one of us is going to do it?”

“I am,” Turlough said, his voice firm and resolute. The Doctor turned toward him, his expression horrified.

“No, Turlough, you can’t….”

Turlough narrowed his eyes at him. “Would you rather it be Tegan then?”

Hurt briefly appeared on the Doctor’s face, but Turlough did not back off from his question. He knew that he was being cruel about this, but he loved the Doctor too much to not be cruel at that particular moment.

“No offense, Tegan,” he added. “But I’ll be better at handling whatever Borusa might do.”

“Oh?” Tegan said, her eyes holding a challenge. “And how do you figure that?”

Turlough let out a short laugh. “Because I already know what it’s like to have an evil entity inside my head that’s trying to destroy me. I was able to deal with it, and this couldn’t be any worse than that.”

Tegan’s mouth fell open in surprise, but she recovered quickly. “You just barely survived that, Turlough. The Black Guardian nearly killed you. And what if this is worse?” She turned toward the Doctor and tugged his sleeve. “Tell him.”

The Doctor looked to the floor again, desolate. “Turlough is right, Tegan.”

“Doctor, you can’t be….”

“He was able to cope with the mental assaults from the Black Guardian for a time like he said. Also, his mind is better suited for dealing with what he’ll encounter in this telepathic link.”

“Better suited,” Tegan snorted. “You mean smarter than a human?”

The Doctor looked up at her with a sad smile. “No, I mean more logical. Better able to compartmentalize. It’s not a slight on your intelligence or capabilities at all. Also, he’s only known me in this incarnation. It’s difficult to explain, but having someone with me who perceives me as the Doctor first and foremost could be vital.”

Tegan still looked frustrated and unsure, but she eventually nodded in agreement. “All right. What can I do?”

“I’ll need you to monitor the equipment I’m going to attach to Turlough,” he said. “Specifically, you will need to watch his vital signs. Establishing this link will put a strain on his body. If it becomes too severe, you’re to disconnect him from our link immediately.”

“What about you?” Tegan asked. “How will I know if you’ve succeeded in getting rid of Borusa?”

“I’ll regain consciousness as soon as that happens,” the Doctor said. “But even if I do not, you’re to disconnect Turlough before any permanent damage can occur. I will worry about what happens after that.”

Tegan frowned, but the tone the Doctor used made it clear that he would accept no argument. “All right, Doctor.”

“I’m going to gather the equipment we’ll need and set everything up in the console room,” the Doctor said, heading out of the library. “It will be easier to hook it up there.”

He exited the room before either of them could say anything more. Tegan started to follow him, but Turlough grabbed her arm.

“Tegan, you can’t disconnect me too soon,” he insisted. “We have to be sure that Borusa is gone.”

Tegan wrenched her arm away. “You heard what the Doctor said. If you stay hooked up for too long, it could seriously hurt you.”

“I don’t care!” Turlough shot back. Then he stopped and took a deep breath so he could regain his usual surface impassiveness. If he was going to convince Tegan to go along with his plans, he would have to be calm and precise about it.

“We both know how dangerous Borusa could be,” he continued, making sure to sound rational and reasonable. “We can’t let him take over the Doctor and put himself in charge of the Time Lords. Think about all the damage he could do. And what about all those people the Doctor wouldn’t be able to help? Hundreds, thousands of people. Entire planets. Your planet. How many times has he saved Earth, Tegan?”

Tegan looked at him, contemplative and Turlough was pleased at how she seemed to be considering what he was saying.

“I’m just one person,” he said. “You can’t put me in front of all those other lives.”

For a moment, Turlough thought that he had succeeded in turning her to his point of view. But then he was confused when he saw her expression soften.

“You really are hung up on him, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

Turlough frowned, frustrated. “Tegan….”

“Turlough, listen, I’m glad you love him…whatever that means for you. I’m sure he’s good for you. And he deserves to be happy.” Tegan paused, her eyes regaining their usual stubborn glint. “Maybe you’re actually trying to be brave instead of sneaky for once, but it’s not going to work.”

She walked closer to him and jabbed his chest with her index finger. “You’re one person all right. The one person who the Doctor is in love with. I’ve seen how he looks at you. You’re important to him. Not just in the usual way his friends are either. And don’t forget, I saw what losing Adric and Nyssa did to him. If something happens to you too…it will break him. I know it. And I’m not going to be a party to that.”

Turlough glared at her, his lips pressed in a thin angry line. He thought about trying to convince her again, but he could already tell that she wouldn’t budge on this. The best he could hope for is that he had planted some small seed of doubt that might make her hesitate a little longer to stop the link than she would have before.

He stormed out of the library and headed for the console room. The Doctor was already there with a box full of wires and electrodes and with two large monitors sitting near the wall.  He looked up briefly when Turlough walked in, but immediately went back to fiddling with the equipment without a word.

“How long do you think we’ll need?” Turlough asked with forced casualness. “To make sure?”

The Doctor did not respond for several moments, and Turlough was about to repeat the question when a long sigh stopped him.

“It’s difficult to say. Time will not move in the same way as it does in the physical world. Here, it might only be a matter of minutes. But it’s not going to seem like that while we are linked.”

Turlough nodded and leaned against a wall. His hands fidgeted with the hem of his shirt for a while until the Doctor paused in his work and walked over to him.

“Turlough…I still don’t like the idea of you doing this. If Borusa should turn his attention onto you….”

“But we don’t know if he will,” Turlough said, cutting him off. He straightened his posture and made sure to look the Doctor in the eye. “So there’s no point in arguing over it.”

The Doctor watched him for a few seconds before reaching over and placing a hand onto Turlough’s cheek. “If this is about my regenerating…changing…I’ve never forgotten about my companions, Turlough. Or my lovers. I may look different, but my feelings for you wouldn’t change. If, if you could accept me in a different body….”

“No,” Turlough said. “I mean, it’s not that. Or it’s not just that.”

Turlough moved closer so he could embrace the Doctor while resting his head against his shoulder. The Doctor immediately reciprocated, running one hand up and down Turlough’s back as he held him.

“It doesn’t matter what body you have,” Turlough continued. “After what happened in the Death Zone…I know now I’d want to be with you no matter how you are. Even if people might think you are my grandfather or something.”

The Doctor sighed while Turlough snickered at that. Then he wrapped his arms tighter around the Doctor and ducked down to push his forehead against the Doctor’s shoulder.

“But that doesn’t mean I want to let go of _this_ you,” he added. “That _this_ you doesn’t mean something to me. That I’d just let you go when I could do something about it.”

“Turlough….”

“Don’t,” Turlough hissed, his fingers bunching into the Doctor’s jacket. “Stop acting like you’re disposable compared to the others. Not when I….”

“I know,” the Doctor said softly. “And I’m sorry. The truth is, I don’t want to go through with forcing myself to regenerate either. I’ve experienced it before and I never want to again. But…if it’s a choice between doing that and anything happening to you….”

“We don’t know anything until we try,” Turlough said drily. He could feel the Doctor nod his head.

Turlough buried his face against the Doctor’s neck. Although he did his best to hide it, he was terrified of something that had the Doctor so anxious and ready to take drastic measures. The Doctor was not the kind of person to overestimate the danger in a situation which meant that Borusa was an even graver threat than Turlough had first thought.

Still, Turlough also found the prospect of life without the Doctor he knew just as terrifying as anything he could imagine happening with Borusa. Besides that, he had already been willing to risk the Black Guardian’s wrath rather than lose the Doctor.

What more could Borusa do to him?

Worry for the Doctor and nervousness over what was to come made Turlough shiver, clinging even more to him. The Doctor tightened his hold as well while pulling him closer. As if he was trying to shield Turlough from the rest of the universe. Eventually, Turlough felt his nerves calm a little as he listened to the Doctor’s breathing while being caressed although he still felt on edge.

He knew the Doctor would go to just about any length to keep him safe. And right now, it was a thought that both comforted and terrified him.

The sound of high heels made both of them pull back and loosen their grip on each other. It wasn’t so much the fear of discovery now as being reluctant to share these intimate moments with anyone else. Even a close friend like Tegan.

The Doctor smiled at him and planted a light kiss on Turlough’s forehead. Then he started to head back over to the equipment scattered on the console room floor just as Tegan walked in. She glanced at each of them, a knowing and exasperated look on her face before shaking her head.

“All right, Doctor,” she said. “Just show me what I need to do.”

* * *

 

Almost an hour later, both the Doctor and Turlough were sitting on beds from the TARDIS sick bay. Each of them had patches of electrodes stuck onto their foreheads and temples. Turlough had additional patches on one of his fingers, his neck and more than one spot on his chest so as to monitor his breathing, heart rate, and neurological responses.

The Doctor had taken baseline readings from Turlough and programmed them into the monitors before instructing Tegan how to use the machines.

“It’s really quite simple, Tegan,” the Doctor had told her. “That purple button there will start the process for the link. The link can be turned off with the blue button next to it. Although, if I regain consciousness, that won’t be necessary.”

He gestured at the monitors next to Turlough. “Now, those monitors are what you need to be watching. If any of his vital signs become critical, an alarm will go off and you’ll need to deactivate the link immediately. Understand? Do not wait for me to awaken if that happens.”

“All right, Doctor,” Tegan said, hesitant. “But why don’t you have those health monitor things hooked up to you?”

“Because my body won’t be undergoing the strain that Turlough’s will,” the Doctor said, lying down. “Time Lords can accomplish this sort of mind link without machines so it’s not taxing on our nervous systems.”

Turlough took a deep breath and laid down. The Doctor’s expression grew somber.

“It’s very likely that Turlough’s vital signs will fluctuate during this,” the Doctor added. “At times…these fluctuations will be severe and he will be in a great deal of distress.”

Tegan and the Doctor looked over at Turlough who watched them with grim impassiveness.

“Turlough…are you sure about this?” Tegan asked.

“I’m sure,” Turlough replied, his jaw set. “Let’s get on with it.”

The Doctor nodded and gestured at Tegan to start the machine. After pushing the purple button, she turned back toward Turlough, worry in her eyes.

Meanwhile, the Doctor stretched out on the bed, his face becoming languid.

“It will start any time now, Turlough,” he said drowsily. “It might be easier for you if you closed your eyes.”

Turlough nodded, giving the Doctor one last lingering look before letting his eyelids slide shut. Immediately after doing this, a dull ache bled into his body like ink into water. The speed at which it spread nearly took his breath away.

Then there was nothing more as Turlough passed out.


	5. Chapter 5

There were sounds. Low and murmuring. No, not just sounds.

Voices.

Turlough took several deep breaths and slowly opened his eyes. His mouth fell open slightly as he realized that he was no longer on the TARDIS. Instead, he was in a large, empty room without windows or furniture. The walls were the color of sandstone and the plush carpeted floor was the red that streaked off the sun during mornings on Earth. The only other features of note were several arched doorways around the room. Although they had no doors on them, Turlough couldn’t make out where these doorways led to.

The oddest thing of all though was the fact that Turlough could still hear the hushed voices, but didn’t see anyone else around.

“Doctor?” he called out beginning to pace. “Doctor, where are you?”

The sound of footsteps caught his attention, and he whirled around to see an elderly man with a walking stick coming toward him.

Turlough sighed in relief. He recognized him as the Doctor. The first one, according to him. Even though the old man was shorter with white hair instead of blond, Turlough was convinced that he could still see a glint of something familiar in the old man’s eyes.

“There you are, young man,” the old Doctor said. “Let’s see what we can find out, hmmm.”

Turlough walked toward him. “Doctor, I….”

But the old man brushed past him as if he wasn’t there. “Now see here, Chesterton, we can just blindly run into a situation. We must think this through.”

Turlough continued to watch the old Doctor wander off. It was clear that this Doctor did not see him or was even aware of his existence. However, he didn’t have long to think about that before other voices came into the room.

“My dear chap, I’m afraid the farce behind the phrase ‘military intelligence’ will never be apparent to you.”

“Oh, oh, if only it were that simple, Jamie….”

Turlough looked over to see two more familiar figures walk in. The short dark-haired Doctor with the rumpled suit and the tall, white-haired Doctor with the velvet jacket and frilled cuffs. Turlough remembered seeing them in the Tower of Rassilon as well. Just like the old Doctor, they kept wandering around the room without acknowledging Turlough’s presence.

In fact, it wasn’t long before it occurred to him that none of the Doctors seemed to be aware of each other, a though he found vaguely disturbing.

“Ah, there you are. Would you like a jelly baby?”

Turlough spun toward the booming voice to see another man striding into the room. This one was taller yet with brown curls and a toothy smile that seemed to take up half of his face. Vivid blue eyes danced with wisdom, energy and something far more mysterious. He was dressed in long, burgundy clothes with a scarf that was draped over him several times.

Turlough watched him with interest. From what Tegan had told him, this had to be the Doctor who had changed into the one he knew. This Doctor was so different from his own in several ways. True, he could still detect traits from the others in him like the child-like wonder of the shorter Doctor or the commanding presence of the tall, dandyish Doctor.

But this latest one also seemed more distant, more alien than the Doctor Turlough had grown close to. He might have been familiar on a fundamental level, but Turlough felt unsure around this Doctor who seemed to dominate the room and eclipse his other selves. Except perhaps the old Doctor. That old man always did seem to take charge, even when he was silent.

There was still no sign of his Doctor, and Turlough’s worry increased. However, he also could detect no trace of the darkness that had touched him before, so he was at least confident that Borusa had not discovered his presence yet.

“Doctor!” Turlough called out again, not expecting a response from any of the other Doctors in the room. They continued to converse with no one else, oblivious to all others present.

Turlough went back to pacing, stopping every once in a while to touch his forehead. A dull pressure had started up which concerned him. So far, it wasn’t anything that he couldn’t ignore, but Turlough also figured that this would worsen before too long. He needed to find the Doctor as soon as possible.

He glanced over at the other Doctors who had spread out and blinked hard. Something was different now, but he couldn’t quite place what it was. It wasn’t until the old Doctor began tottering toward one of the doorways that Turlough realized what had caught his eye.

It was the fact that while that old man was walking toward a doorway, he was also standing next to the tall bohemian Doctor a few feet away.

Turlough looked back and forth, confused. There was no mistaking it. There were two identical Doctors in two different places in the room. It wasn’t long after that before he noticed more duplicates of the other Doctors which seemed to appear from nowhere.

In fact, every time Turlough looked somewhere else, more duplicates appeared, all of them talking, gesturing, and wandering around as if none of the others were there. Meanwhile, the noise from the clamor of voices grew louder and louder.

Turlough winced and weaved his way past the Doctors scattered around the room. He still hadn’t located his Doctor, and he was becoming increasingly anxious because of it. Especially as the crowd of past Doctors became larger.

“Doctor!” he yelled. There was still no response. More Doctors continued to appear and push their way around the room.

Turlough stared at the doorways. Going through one of them didn’t look promising as he still couldn’t see where they went. However, he was also certain that staying here wouldn’t accomplish anything. Not to mention how uncomfortable it would soon get due to the sheer number of duplicates amassing into this limited space.

He stated to shove his way through a knot of short Doctors when his breath caught in his throat which was accompanied by pain in his chest. Turlough stopped and panted.

_‘This…it must be my body reacting to the link.’_

_‘No…no I must…must not…Tegan must not stop the link….’_

Turlough closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. He needed to relax enough so that his heart rate and respiratory levels would not trigger one of the alarms on the monitors he was attached to. After a few moments of concentration, he managed to calm his breathing and put the pain blossoming in his temples to the back of his mind.

Just as he was getting ready to open his eyes again, another sensation overtook him: anxiety. Not really the fear of anything definite. It was more of a generalized feeling. Of dread. Of stress. Of helplessness. Eventually, Turlough was startled to discover that these feelings were not actually his own. It was as if he was absorbing someone else’s emotional state.

_‘The Doctor. It has to be. He must be somewhere near.’_

Turlough opened his eyes. The crowd of people had grown even more. He squeezed his way through them more by instinct that with any inkling of where he should go. As he searched, the vague feelings of stress and despondency increased which, while not pleasant, told Turlough he was on the right track.

“Doctor!” Turlough yelled over the babbling surrounding him. “Doctor, answer me! Please!”

Suddenly, Turlough spied a spot in the crowd where none of the duplicates got too close. A small circle of what looked like empty space. Turlough pushed through the tangle of Doctors and found the Doctor, his Doctor, sitting cross-legged on the ground. He was the only one with no duplicates around which made an odd sort of sense to Turlough.

However, it wasn’t long before Turlough realized that his Doctor was not well at all. The Doctor’s eyes looked haunted and confused, his posture tense. He had his hands pressed over his ears and he was hunched over, as he was trying to shut out the chaos that was continuing to build.

Turlough eventually made his way through and crouched down in front of him. At first, the Doctor showed no sign that he was aware of Turlough either. Turlough frowned and gently placed his hands onto the Doctor’s forearms.

Finally, the Doctor raised his head. “Turlough?”

Turlough didn’t understand how he was able to hear the Doctor’s quiet, tentative voice amidst the noise, but he was glad that he could.

“Yes,” he said, smiling at him. He guided the Doctor’s hands away from his ears and clasped them. “Let’s get out of here.”

He helped the Doctor to his feet, but when he tried to push his way through the crowd, the Doctor remained frozen where he was. Turlough looked back at him to see that the distress on the Doctor’s face had become more pronounced and there was a growing panic in his eyes. He tried again to pull the Doctor along, but the Doctor stayed where he was.

“Doctor? Doctor, it’s all right. These are just…memories or something. We don’t have to stay here.”

“Can’t,” the Doctor said, starting to shake. “Can’t…think…can’t…they, they…can’t think….”

Turlough swallowed hard. It hurt to see the Doctor so frail and helpless. At that moment, he was nothing like that confident, energetic, curious Doctor he knew and loved. Instead, there was a weary, terrified man who was being broken down bit by bit.

_‘Was this how I looked to him while the Black Guardian still had a hold on me? Lost, pitiful, and confused. Was this what the Doctor saw when he decided to care for me, to trust me…?’_

_‘To fall in love with me?’_

The thought made Turlough squirm with discomfiture even though he could sympathize with what he imagined the Doctor had to be feeling. Then he thought about what he had needed during his own ordeal with the Black Guardian and moved closer to the Doctor. He tenderly took hold of the Doctor’s hands.

“Doctor, look at me,” he said forcefully. Bleary eyes soon found his. “I’m here. I’m here, Doctor. Just focus on me now. Don’t worry.”

The Doctor blinked rapidly, clearly trying to put in the effort, but still getting distracted by the confusion in his own mind. He gripped Turlough’s wrists with shaking fingers.

Frustrated and desperate to ease the Doctor’s suffering, Turlough embraced him, guiding the Doctor’s head down so he could bury his face into the crook of Turlough’s neck. Soon, the Doctor stopped shaking and clung to him.

“They’re strangers to me,” the Doctor murmured. “They don’t know I’m here.”

Turlough tightened his hold. “I don’t think they’re real, Doctor. Maybe this is some kind of trick. Maybe it’s Borusa trying to distract us.”

It was a wild guess, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense to Turlough. It explained why none of the other Doctors noticed them and kept repeating the same few phrases over and over again.

“Yes,” the Doctor said, lifting his head. “Yes, of course. Borusa…he’s finding scraps of my memories and animating them somehow.”

Turlough smiled again. The Doctor was starting to sound like himself again which was a good sign. Meanwhile, the Doctor reached up to cup Turlough’s face with his hands.

“You’re real,” the Doctor breathed.

Turlough simply nodded and leaned in to kiss him. The Doctor kissed back, wrapping one arm around Turlough’s waist and closing his eyes as he did.

Suddenly, the noise stopped. Both Turlough and the Doctor opened their eyes to find the room empty, the colors around them fading.

A quizzical look appeared on Turlough’s face. “Doctor?”

“I suspect this trap lost its power once I understood what it was,” the Doctor replied. He let Turlough go, but made sure to hold onto his hand. “Come on, we need to find where Borusa is hiding in my mind.”

Turlough nodded, still studying his surroundings while they continued to fade and lose all of their detail. The Doctor paused in front of the doorways, but then shrugged his shoulders and walked through the closest one, pulling Turlough along with him.

* * *

 

What they found on the other side was a long stretch of beach. The sand was a fine grain and prismatic, catching all of the blues and sea greens of the sky above them as well as flecks from the magenta waves of foamy water that were lapping against the shore. Nearby were trees with blush-red trunks with bare limbs that arched upward.

“Arkrillian,” the Doctor said with a smile. “I’d recognize the beaches anywhere. Lovely planet. A colony world of the Bervidians which means that, half the time, there’s nothing but the local flora and fauna living there.”

“Yes, but what are we doing here?” Turlough asked with a frown. “Is this another one of Borusa’s traps?”

“No, no I don’t think so. Just a stray memory.” The Doctor looked over at Turlough and smiled affectionately. “I would like to take you here at some point. You and Tegan. I think the both of you would enjoy it. You can lie on this beach all day and never get more than a light tan due to the low intensity of the sun’s rays. And the nights are particularly lovely. Ideal for spending time with someone special.”

Turlough started to smile back, but let out a soft choking sound instead while grabbing at his chest. The Doctor’s face fell as he let go of Turlough’s hand to grab his upper arms.

“Turlough, are you all right?”

Turlough nodded even though that was far from the truth. His chest felt as if it was bound with metal bands, making it hard to breathe. His heart was racing and if it beat any harder, Turlough was sure it would burst from his chest.

“It’s the link,” the Doctor said, his features grim. “It’s becoming too much for your body to handle. Tegan should be severing it any time now.”

“No!” Turlough said between clenched teeth. “I’ll be all right.” He closed his eyes and took a couple of shuddering breaths as he struggled to push through the pain. When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the Doctor’s stern expression.

“I don’t know why Tegan hasn’t disconnected the link yet,” the Doctor said. “But this has to stop, Turlough. So I will just have to close it myself.”

The Doctor raised his hands toward Turlough’s head, but Turlough immediately backed away from him.

“You said there would be a strain on my body,” he retorted. “Well, there is one, but I can handle it. We haven’t found Borusa yet and I’m staying until we do. You need my help.”

“I’m not going to sacrifice….”

“I’m not asking you to,” Turlough cut in coldly. “This was my choice, and I don’t want to stop just because you feel squeamish about seeing me in any pain.” He took a step back toward the Doctor, defiance in his eyes. “I can handle this, Doctor. Stop insisting that you know more about my limits than I do.”

The Doctor responded with an angry look, but remained silent. It was then, right at that moment, that Turlough realized that the Doctor probably grew up much like he did: privileged and yet obligated. As someone who had been groomed for a position of authority and for a day when he would give out orders with the expectation that they would not be defied.

As an Imperial Trion, it was something that was etched into the fiber of Turlough’s being, and now he could see a reflection of that in the Doctor. It was frustrating to deal with, and yet, Turlough couldn’t help but feel a warm sympathy toward the Doctor for it.

Turlough only had time to reflect on this for a few more seconds before hearing something so distant it was just beyond his ability to decipher it. A murmur that sounded much like what he had heard in that room of Doctor duplicates reached his ears. It didn’t take long for the sound to rise in volume and intensity again.

Or for the Doctor to be affected by it

The Doctor gasped and pressed his hands onto his ears again, his eyes slamming shut while his mouth opened with a soft cry of distress. He staggered about, his body leaning forward.

Then the water grew dark and started to churn. The waves slapped the shore with increasing force. A black plume began to envelop the sun, leaving only a sickly ring of light in the sky.

Turlough blinked and was startled to realize he was suddenly much further away from the Doctor than he had been only seconds ago. Sensing danger, he immediately rushed toward him.

“Doctor!”

He had almost reached him when a wave arched up toward the shore and crashed down onto the Doctor, sending a thick spray of water forth which blew Turlough back for a moment. When the wave drew back into the ocean, the Doctor was nowhere to be found.

Turlough’s heart leapt into his throat, his eyes widening in terror. He succumbed to it for only a moment though before acting. He yanked off his jacket, tie and shoes and ran straight for the water, diving into the swirling waves.

The ocean was dark, murky like a swamp. It was also cold, and Turlough’s teeth chattered as soon as he surfaced from his initial dive. He took a deep breath and went under again. He swam downward, frantically waving his hands out to search the water. He could only see as far as his arms could stretch which meant he kept having to surface and then go back under again in order to search even a few feet of the ocean around him.

_‘This must be another one of Borusa’s traps. The Doctor is here somewhere. He must be. I just need to think….’_

Turlough quaked as he treaded the chilling waters. The cold was starting to hurt and in the places that it didn’t hurt, he had become numb. He knew he couldn’t stay in this water much longer and was struggling to figure out what to do next.

He gulped and closed his eyes again so he could concentrate.

_‘Doctor…please…. You have to help me. Help me find you.’_

_‘Don’t leave me alone.’_

_‘Please….’_

It was then that Turlough felt it: a presence warm, familiar and comforting. A presence that called to him. The Doctor. It had to be. He opened his eyes and studied the water until he suddenly felt drawn to one particular section a few feet away. He immediately swam toward it and took an even larger breath before diving straight down.

Turlough went deeper this time. He reached what he had thought was a safe depth and then kept going. Just as he was starting to panic about being able to make it back to the surface in time, he spied the Doctor. He was limp, suspended in a tangle of thick seaweed that had wrapped itself around his limbs.

Turlough darted over. His lungs were burning as he yanked at the weeds trapping the Doctor. He was running out of air and was close to giving in when he finally managed to get the Doctor loose.

That motion seemed to wake the Doctor out of his stupor. He opened his eyes and wrapped an arm around Turlough’s waist before swimming vigorously toward the surface. Meanwhile, Turlough was choking, unable to hold his breath any longer. But just as we was about to let water into his lungs, the Doctor hauled them to the surface, keeping a firm grip on Turlough while he coughed out the water that had gotten into his mouth.

For a moment they silently treaded water while clinging to each other. Then Turlough let his head droop down to rest on the Doctor’s shoulder.

He coughed again, his body still shaking. “Doctor….”

The Doctor began to stroke the back of his head. “Are you all right?”

Turlough nodded. “Doctor, how are we going to find Borusa like this? Isn’t there any way to trace these traps back to their source? And why is he hiding anyway?”

“Actually, I think he’s getting ready to reveal himself,” the Doctor replied. “These traps, these attacks in my mind, are becoming much more elaborate than they have been in the past.” He turned his attention back to Turlough. “If you hadn’t been here just now….”

The Doctor stroked Turlough’s cheek with Turlough leaning into the touch.

“Doctor….”

But before either of them could say anything else, the water churned again. A whirlpool had formed that was dragging them under. The two of them only had long enough to gulp down a mouthful of air before disappearing under the waves. Turlough immediately felt woozy and passed out soon afterwards.

* * *

 

When Turlough opened his eyes again, he was shocked to realize that he wasn’t in the water anymore.

He groaned and slowly sat up, placing a hand to his face. Then he gazed unthinkingly at his surroundings. He was on dry land now. In fact, it was a rocky desert with sand as red as the setting sun. The rock features nearby had the same fiery hues of red and orange as the ground while the sky was a clear, faded blue.

Turlough scrubbed his face and it finally occurred to him that he wasn’t even wet. He looked down to see that he was once again wearing his jacket, tie and shoes.

 _‘Almost as if it never happened,’_ he mused _. ‘Well…in a way, I suppose it didn’t….’_

He sat there for another minute before suddenly remembering the Doctor. Panic rose up within him for a second until he happened to look behind him and find the Doctor laying on the ground a couple of feet away. Turlough crawled over to him and was dismayed to see that he was unconscious.

Turlough grabbed the Doctor’s shoulder and gave it a hard shake. “Doctor? Doctor, wake up.”

He shook him a couple of more times, but the Doctor was unresponsive. From what Turlough could tell, the Doctor was breathing normally if slowly and still had regular heartbeats. He just could not rouse him for some reason.

“I see he let you into his mind to assist him. Typical of him. The Doctor was always such a sentimentalist.”

Turlough sat up and shifted his body to the right to see a figure standing a few yards away. A figure wearing long black robes who had a pale, sneering face.

Borusa.                                                                 

 


End file.
